Pretend
by Wouldyoukindly84
Summary: Big Daddy isn't sure why he always has to be the baby.


"C'mon, Mr. B! It's time to go grocery shopping! I'll be the mommy and you'll be the baby, and if you're very good we can have a treat at the end. We'll have some Adam! Wouldn't you like that?"

He doesn't know why she does this, play these pretend games. At first, he perhaps thought that she was seeing something that he couldn't. She would pick up invisible things and hand them to him and when he put his hand out she would leave the thing there, and then never ask for it again. If she was actually seeing something there, wouldn't she require it back again at the end of their shopping trip? This thing was always different, and despite the size and weight of it she never had a problem picking it up. She once told him that she was giving him a bathtub to hold so they could take it home because she was remodeling the bathroom.

Outside of the invisibility, they were never in any place that held consumable food stuffs, at least not that he could see. Sometimes there were bags of chips or other left over food, but she wouldn't reach for them to put in their cart. Which lead him back to the idea that this was all imaginary, pretend, just a game, which explains some, but not all of her act, like why he always had to be the baby.

He's bigger than her, he shouldn't have to be the baby.

This logical argument was not something he ever brought up with her, not for lack of trying, but like most of his cognitive faculties, his speech functions were extremely limited. What came out when he responded to her (almost constant) ramblings, was nothing more than, from what he could tell, grunts and odd machine noises. Never the less, the dark haired little girl seemed to understand them and respond to them in kind, which he sort of enjoyed. He had nothing to really talk about, no deep thoughts to try and convey but he had opinions on cake and sweets which she took into consideration and she knew just how he took his coffee and tea which made him feel very special.

She seemed to know that he was bored and lonely when she was gone.

Not that he had a large emotional vocabulary, it was as extensive as his actual vocabulary, but there were some things that he could feel, understand, especially when he was on his own. Boredom was one of these, rage another, along with a feeling that he couldn't assign one word to, but knew it as the need to protect. Not just the little one he was currently following down the long checker titled floored hallway. All of the little ones he had spotted at various times. They all, more or less, looked the same to him, until he had spent more time with the one in the blue dress. It wasn't a physical difference between her and the others, but, maybe a way she moved that he caught on to. Like how the different splicers moved, how he could tell one type apart from another. Not that it meant anything, they all needed to die, they all screamed the same, they all bled the same.

"We will have milk and eggs for dinner, and we will need cheese too. The cheese is on the top shelf, baby bubbles, will you get it for me?"

See, if he was a baby would he be able to reach the top shelf? Babies aren't big, they're little, he knows this for some reason, it's knowledge lurking in the dark gray impotent areas in his brain. He still tilts his head upward toward where the little girl was pointing and reaches with one hand for empty space.

"No, not that one! It's the one next to it! Silly, baby bubbles! That's the yucky kind of cheese."

Huh. He had no idea, that he was silly or that was the bad kind of cheese. It seemed like a good cheese to him. Still, obligingly, he reached over to the right and looked back at the grungy little girl staring up at him expectantly, Adam needle in one hand the other on her tiny hip. That's a mother look, he's sure of it, that's why she's the mother.

"That's the one! Pick it up and put it in the cart. You're being very good today on this shopping trip, we'll have so much Adam when we get home!"

That also pleases him, when she says he does well for whatever reason, even if it has to do with him picking the right cheese and behaving while on a shopping trip. Like most commands he obeys her without question, putting the cheese in the empty space where she was putting most of the other things. A dark little head nodded approval when he finished and they continued on their way, her skipping, him lumbering.

"Everything is on sale today, and everything is free, so I don't need to spend any money which is good because I have none!"

The sound of needle entering flesh is something he has gotten used to, it echos off the walls, and he sort of wonders if splicers can hear it from miles away. She babbles on about dinner and angels as the sharp tip of the gun enters the corpse over and over again, some, sprawled out man, head half missing, along with his mask. It's the only time he wishes she was quiet so he could hear the lunatic ravings of the animals who seek her out. Tonight, for now, the hallway is silent outside of the splitting of skin and the little girl who informs him that they will have milk and tea for dinner, milk for him because he's a baby.

To which he responds with an odd sort of grunt and twist of metal, he doesn't want to have milk, he wants to have tea.

"Tea will keep you up all night and we won't have that again, now will we? You're grumpy in the morning when you're up all night, when you don't get your dream time."

She isn't wrong, he does get awfully grumpy when he gets no sleep, just another reason why she is the mommy. She looks out for him, makes sure that he is taken care of, and that's a nice feeling, he doesn't get that feeling any time else. The rest of their time together is spent much the same way, shopping and harvesting. Towards the end of their time together, she makes dinner and tea, and he watches silently as she scurries back and forth, cooking and setting the table for them. He wonders where she learned all this, how she knows what to do to make dinner, to set a table, he doesn't know any of these things but when he watches her do them it seems right. Sometimes he moves around to doorways, to windows, to make sure that there is no thing coming to disturb them, that no thing will try and hurt the little one in his care, he feels good protecting her, making sure that nothing gets her.

Even if she does make him drink the milk with dinner and not the tea.

Their supper and her last harvest is quiet, filled with her chatter and his grinding responses, until it is time for her to go. He wonders what is behind the walls, where the little holes she climbs into leads to. He wonders if she is safe and happy in that place, if she misses him, he never asks.

"Good bye, Mr. B! Be good and go to sleep, no more eggs and no tea, otherwise you'll get an upset tummy," she tells him as she crawls into the dark hole in the wall.

His world is silent again and he looks around the darkened corridors he stands in and then back toward where they had their dinner. What is he to do? Where is he to go when there is no one to follow, to protect? The whole of Rapture stretches before him, empty, pointless, silent as a tomb without the little one and he is lost. After silent minutes tick by he moves again he should go clean up, maybe have some tea while she isn't looking. She'll never know.


End file.
